by Max Brand
At that, she regretted what she had said, for she saw the mouth of Morgan Valentine setting in a way she knew very well. But he had closed the conversation too definitely and pointedly for her to attempt to reopen it.
The sheriffs were at least good losers. They made only laughing comments on their futile chase of Jess Dreer the night before. And they kept up the same cheery talk all during the breakfast. When Mary Valentine came down with Elizabeth beside her, they neither frowned at the girl who had broken through their trap nor openly reproached her. If anyone were estranged by the events of the night before, it seemed, oddly enough, to be the three women. For Elizabeth studiously avoided the eye of Mary and paid strict attention to eating, and as for Maude Valentine, it seemed that her niece was not in the room for all the attention that she paid her.
Charlie and Louis were full of open admiration for the manner in which the outlaw had broken through.
“But it must of been a lucky shot that he got in,” said Charlie. “It ain’t hardly likely that it was aimed, the shot that dropped Sam.”
“D’you see where it hit him?” asked Sheriff John Caswell, raising his head at this point in the conversation.
“Clean through the thigh. He’ll be on his feet ag’in inside three weeks and riding after Jess Dreer.”
At this the sheriff smiled pityingly.
“Son,” he said, “Clancy tells me you’re kind of handy with a gun yourself; but you fasten onto this. If Dreer had wanted to kill Sam he would of done it. That was an aimed shot, son. And don’t make no mistake.”
“But it was night, Mr. Caswell, and besides, he was on a galloping hoss.”
“Sure he was, but all Dreer needs is enough light to see what he’s shooting at. He’s a snap shot, son, and he shoots with a gun the way other men point with their finger. No, sir; he planted that shot on purpose not to kill Sam, but to drop him off’n his hoss. And here’s another thing. Sam won’t take the trail after Jess as soon as he can ride a hoss ag’in. Not him! It’s a queer thing, but them that’s ever faced Jess don’t generally have any hankering to see him ag’in. And them that’s seen him swing a gun jest natcherally lose all appetite for seeing the same show all over ag’in.”
“But you’ve been on the trail a long time, Sheriff,” said Charlie.
“It’s different with me, son. I’ll tell you how it is. Jess Dreer has made a fool out of me more times than you can count on your two fingers. And I don’t mind much of anything except to have a man laugh at me. Well, they’s been other men take after Jess that was a heap smarter men than I’ll ever be, and they’s been some that was faster fighters and straighter shots. Jess has fooled ’em all. He may keep right on fooling me, but he’ll never shake me off’n his trail. I stay there till I come up with him and one of us goes down. I ain’t fast, I ain’t smart, but I’m a tolerable patient man, son. Tolerable patient!”
For some reason there was little talk at the breakfast table after this moment.
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS THE patient man who said to Sheriff Clancy of Salt Springs, a little later: “Clancy, have you been looking around over the ground this morning?”
“What ground, Caswell?”
“Around the house, where Dreer got away.”
“Yep. I ran over a little of the sign.”
“What’d you think about it?”
“It was all pretty clear reading, I thought. I seen the place where he dropped out of the window and camped for a minute waiting, before he whistled to that hoss of his, that Angelina you’re always talking about.”
“I’ll tell you something then, pardner. They’s some new sign this morning. Something added on top of what they was last night. I seen where that long- stepping Angelina went away — and I seen where she come back.”
“Dreer came back?”
“Unless that hoss traveled alone, which ain’t likely, I’d say.”
Sheriff Claney cursed fluently.
“He come back to the house, with you and me inside it?”
“Yep, with you and me inside it, asleep. And he didn’t only come back and look things over. He come back and went inside the house.”
Claney gasped. “Are you sure?”
“Positive certain. And now, Claney, I think my hard work is over.”
“How comes that?”
“It’s the first time that ever Dreer took a back step on a trail. It’s the first time that ever he took a useless chance. What was they for him to gain by coming back here?”
“Nothing except to sass us.”
“Dreer wouldn’t even sass a two-year-old kid. It means that he ain’t the same man that he used to be. It means that he ain’t working alone. Well, Claney, you know it’s a hundred times easier to catch two men that travels together than it is to catch one.”
“I don’t foller you, pardner.”
“I don’t mean that they’s really another man with Jess Dreer. What I mean is that he’s found something in this house that he came back to. And I’d even talk up and say what it is.”
“Well?”
“It’s the black-haired girl, I figure.”
“And if he come back to her once, he’ll come back to her ag’in. It’s his nature.”
“Soft on women?”
“Never looked twice at one before, so far as I know. That’s why I’m sure that this means something. Dreer has played a lone hand, but now that he’s got somebody besides himself to think about, he’s lost. Claney, you write this down in red and remember it. As sure as they’s rain and sunshine, I’m going to get Jess Dreer, and where I get him ain’t going to be far away from this house.”
“You’re going to camp here and wait for him to come back?” asked Claney, smiling.
“I’m going to camp near here,” replied the sheriff from the southland, “and I’m going to wait. Time and the black-haired girl, Claney, will win for me in the end.”
And the two men parted.
It happened that at this moment Charlie Valentine and his brother Louis were standing on the veranda together and overlooking this scene.
“What beats me,” said Charlie, “is the idea of a gent like this Caswell taking a crack at Jess Dreer. Why, big Dreer would bust him in two with one hand.”
“I dunno,” replied Louis in his mild way, “they’s something about Caswell. Speaking personal, I’d sort of hate to have him on my trail.”
“That’s another one of your hunches,” Charlie said in good-natured banter. And they watched the two sheriffs ride side by side up the road.
They had hardly disappeared around the hill when another horseman galloped into view from the opposite direction.
“It’s Tom Waite,” said Charlie Valentine after a moment.
“How d’you tell?” asked his brother.
“By the way he rides, slanting. They ain’t anybody has the same seat as Tommy.”
“Well,” murmured Louis, “I’ll tell you another thing. Tom Waite is bringing us bad news.”
“And how d’you tell that?”
Louis Valentine scratched his head.
“I dunno, Charlie. Look at the way he keeps his head down and the brim of his hat blowing across his eyes. Take a gent that’s just riding, and he’d be riding with his head up. But Tom comes as if he was trying to get away from something behind him.”
His brother looked askance at Louis. He constantly felt his superiority as the better fighter, stronger man, sharper wit; but all of these qualities were being continually discounted by a singular power in Louis. It might have been called second sight, these odd premonitions. It often made him laughed at, ridiculed; but there was an undercurrent of respect for the superstitions of the youngest Valentine. For instance, though he was a capable broncobuster, he had been known several times to refuse positively to mount a horse considered by no means dangerous; and it had been noted, on these occasions, that the horse was exceedingly apt to develop a bad streak after Louis Valentine refused to take the saddle. Not that Louis wa
s considered a prophet, but he was widely known as “a gent that’s got hunches.”
Accordingly, Charlie looked side wise at his younger brother on this day and frowned uneasily. Indeed, the prophecy was instantly verified, for Tom Waite ran up the steps and came to a panting halt before them. He wasted no words.
“Charlie, you’re going to Salt Springs tomorrow?”
“Yep. To get that saddle I won at the bucking contest last month.”
“Then lemme give you some advice. Keep away from Salt Springs tomorrow. Keep right here at home. It ain’t healthy for you to go into town.”
The brothers exchanged significant glances, but Louis showed no pleasure at seeing his “hunch” come true.
“Talk sharp, Tom,” said the elder of the Valentine boys. “What’s up?”
“The Normans are up,” replied Tom Waite, drawing his first easy breath after the ride and the run up the steps.
“That news ain’t altogether news.”
“Not about the Normans at the ranch, but now they’s another twist to things.”
“Go ahead. Are they going to mob me when I come in?”
“Some say that the Normans was thinking of that very thing, but they found out mighty quick that around Salt Springs we wouldn’t stand for any crowd jumping on one man. No matter what you’ve done, Charlie — and between you and me they’s a good many think you’re too free with a gun play — but no matter what you’ve done, it’s always been man to man, a clean break, and a fair chance all around.”
“Thanks, Tommy.”
“Oh, I’m with you, solid enough; and they’s a lot more of us younger gents that’s all behind you. But with some of the older men it’s different. They figure that you’ve got a lesson coming, or something like that. The long and short of it is, Charlie, that if somebody was to jump you single-handed, they wouldn’t be many men that would go out to help you.”
“Thanks again,” remarked Charlie coldly. “I don’t ask for no help agin’ one man, Tommy.”
At this, the young fellow shook his head.
“They’s men and men,” he said, with a probably quoted wisdom. “Stack you up agin’ a common kind of fighter, and you’d come off first rate. But they’s some that makes a business of fighting. Even with most of them you’d have a good chance, Charlie, because you’ve got a good idea of the hang of a gun. You shoot fast, and you shoot straight. You got plenty of nerve, too. But they’s some you wouldn’t have a chance agin’. And the Normans have found a gent like that.”
“What’s his name? What’s the name of this pet murderer of theirs?” asked Charlie, sneering, but a little white about the lips.
“Hired murderer is the right thing to call him,” said Tom Waite. “And his name is Jud Boone!”
He paused, expectant, and the results were not such as would disappoint him. The pallor which had begun on the face of Charlie now swept completely over it. Yet he maintained a steady front while Louis Valentine, as though it were he whom the danger threatened, fairly collapsed against the railing of the veranda and stared at Tom Waite.
For the name of Jud Boone was far known and known as a man of evil. A fighter and gamester by instinct and profession, he was one of those men about whose past few know many details, but regarding whom there is a general murmur of suspicion. One death near Salt Springs was charged already to his account, but that one killing was the sort whose mention would strike a whole circle of men silent.
“Seems he’s some sort of relation to the Normans, and they’ve looked him up. I suppose they’ve paid him a bunch of money. Anyway, there’s gossip around the town that the plan is for Jud Boone to be somewheres around Carrol’s saloon when you go in there for the saddle. And then, of course, he’ll pick a fight. So the thing for you to do is to stay home, Charlie.”
The latter stood motionless. Plainly he was badly frightened, but he had not yet made up his mind. It seemed that Louis was in fear of some rash decision.
“Don’t be a fool, now,” he pleaded. “Do what Tommy says!”
“I dunno,” muttered Charlie. “I know I got no chance agin’ a man like Jud Boone. But — since folks expect me to be in Salt Springs tomorrow — if I stay home—”
“Folks will say you got good sense, that’s all.”
“I got to see Dad about that,” replied Charlie.
He led the others into the house, and finding his father, he related to him briefly the news which Tom Waite had brought. In the distance Mrs. Valentine heard and said nothing save with her eyes.
CHAPTER 16
“FIRST THING,” SAID Morgan Valentine, when the story was completed, “is this: How d’you feel about it yourself, Charlie?”
His son was disturbed and showed it.
“I dunno,” he said cautiously, and he watched his father with troubled eye. “Point is, if I don’t go in, folks maybe will think I’m afraid of Jud Boone.”
“You’d be a fool if you weren’t,” answered his father. “I know Jud Boone. I’ve seen him work. I’m afraid of him myself.”
“Then you think I’m right to stay home?” And Charlie sighed, immensely relieved.
“I leave it to you,” said his father with his usual unperturbed manner. “When it comes to life and death, every man is his own best judge.”
“If he was an ordinary kind of man,” complained Charlie, “I’d take a chance as quick as anybody. But a professional murderer?” He shuddered. “You say you’re afraid of him, and I guess it ain’t wrong for me to say the same thing.”
“All right, son. You stay here tomorrow, and I’ll go in and get the saddle for you.”
“Dad, if you go, they’ll most likely take it out on you!”
“Most likely they’d try to.”
“And you’ve already said that you wouldn’t like to meet Jud Boone.”
“I wouldn’t like to, but I’d do it.”
Silence fell on the group. Charlie Valentine moistened his colorless lips.
“I’ll tell you something,” went on the father in his calm manner, which had now a deadly interest for the younger men. “One time my brother John got mixed up with a ruffian in the early days.”
He paused to collect his thoughts, and the hush upon the others became deeper; for when Morgan Valentine, once in a year, mentioned the name of his brother, it became a breathless moment.
“I forget the name of the gun fighter. He was a gent with his notches in his gun — and he was the kind that talked about ’em. Well, John crossed him. The gunman was drunk, and he was too clever to fight while he was drunk. He waited till he was all sobered up and then he sent word to John that he was waiting for him.
“I was with John when the news came.
“Well, John waited for an hour or so, thinking. Then he sat down and wrote out his will as good as any lawyer could have done. Then he climbed on his horse and went down to the town. I tried to go with him, but he wouldn’t let me.
“He didn’t come back that night. I waited until dark and then I follered him. When I come to town, it was full of the fight. John had met the gunman, and the gunman had beat him to the draw. He knocked John down with the first bullet through the shoulder — the left shoulder. And while he lay on the floor, he shot John again, and the bullet ripped up the flesh along his ribs. But John lay there and lifted his own gun, slow, took a good aim, and then he fired. That bullet went through the gunman’s heart.”
There was a pause, but no one spoke, for it was evident from the lifted, tense face of Morgan Valentine that he would speak again.
At length: “When I see John, he was pretty badly done up. He took my hand. ‘Thank Heaven it’s over, Morgan,’ he says to me. I says: ‘John, it was a glorious thing to do. The whole town is talking about how brave you are.’
“‘It wasn’t bravery. It was fear,’ says John. ‘I was afraid of that fellow as if he was death. But I’m more afraid of shame than I am of death.’
“I ain’t asking you to follow the example of John, Charlie. I�
�m simply showing you the way one man faced the same sort of thing that you’ve got to face.”
Charlie was white, as though the bullet of Jud Boone had already pierced him.
“All right,” he said huskily, “then I’ll—”
“Don’t make up your mind now,” said his father gently. “Go off and sit down by yourself and think it over. If you go into Salt Springs, you’ll meet Jud Boone. If you meet him, the chances are one out of four that you’ll kill him and four to one that he’ll kill you. You’re a young man, Charlie. You got a lot of things ahead of you. It’s hard to pay that price. But keep this thing in your head, too. That if you don’t meet Jud Boone, the time may come, sooner or later, when you’ll have another thing to face. It may be different. And when that time comes, you may say to yourself, ‘Is it worth it? Is what people may say about me worth the money that I’ll have to pay to keep my name clean?’ And you may remember how you kept away from Jud Boone and then lived down the shame of it. But go off by yourself and think this thing out.”
He left them, and the moment he was gone, Mrs. Valentine, staggering, ran to her oldest son.
“You ain’t going to go, Charlie. Oh, tell me you ain’t going to go?”
He pushed her away, almost rudely.
“You take my nerve when you talk like that,” he said. “Gimme a chance to play the man, Mother! Gimme a chance to think it over!”
He went his way, and Mrs. Valentine, after standing a moment with her hands clasped, looking after him, cast a frantic glance over Tom Waite and Louis, and then hurried from the room.
She had remembered that source of comfort which had many times aided her in her problems with advice keen and to the point even if it came out of a younger head. In a word, she went to the room of Mary Valentine, and there she found not only Mary, but her daughter Elizabeth. They had been laughing together, whispering over some small secret. They started up at the sight of the smaller woman. Mrs. Valentine hardly saw her daughter.